The first thing I did when I entered the auditorium was look for the dreaded bunch of unoccupied seats, the relative danger of addressing an empty room was in fact the lesser of our worries as people did show up and the evening at the engineering college auditorium was more or less consumed with an energy best described as 'support'.
The screening of documentary did what it was supposed to do, garner people's interest and on a basic stage, tell the story of Tibet and 10th March to the hitherto unaware, uninterested and unrelated hoards of people that otherwise might have gotten surprised on reading a new word in the newspaper that actually turns out to be a nation called 'Tibet'. On seeing the graphic images in the film, the audience erupted in subtle ohh's and ahh's and claps after the documentary films gave us the notion of uniform sympathy towards Tibet and her tribulations.
The market for the product called Tibet is quite infinite and the assortment of the people present spelled likewise, besides Tibetan students, Indian students quite understandably, Bhutanese , African, Indonesian, Nepalese, Mongolian and others who-we-were-too-busy-to-ask-where-they-were-from sat through the showcase of the cult Tibetan documentary 'Cry of the Snow Lion', and three other short documentaries. Later the SFT members set up food stalls that boast momos and laphings further intrigued the audience into a rather prosperous social pot(place where ideas were hatched, friendships made and 'thank you for the experience' exchanged )and finally coming together for a goodwill group photo that captured each present gleaming, some with hope, some with satisfaction, some with collaboration and few of just belly full of momos and laphings but to say it was a good evening for Tibet, her clause and SFT,Pune wouldn't be a farfetched observation.
